Compare / Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Mistral Small 4
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Mistral Small 4
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 21 results on 2 sources that measured both models.
Results as of 8 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-08-4199ce0620fe).
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or Mistral Small 4? The short answer
Pick Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.2 against 11.3). Pick Mistral Small 4 if cost matters more: it costs 33% less per game of bullet chess on BulletBench. Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is also faster.
- Mistral Small 4 is cheaper to run: $0.004 against $0.006 per game of bullet chess on BulletBench (33% less).
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.2 against 11.3.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite writes faster: 335 tokens a second against 164.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is newer: released 21 Jul 2026, against 16 Mar 2026 for Mistral Small 4.
- On our own benchmarks, on the results both models have: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite does better for speed under pressure.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite does better for agents and tool use and reasoning and knowledge.
At a glance
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Mistral Small 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.30 in · $2.50 out | $0.15 in · $0.60 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.85 | $0.26 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.85 (Google) | $0.26 (Mistral) |
| Cost per game of bullet chess (BulletBench) | $0.006 | $0.004 |
| Cached input, per million | $0.030 cached input | $0.015 cached input |
| Intelligence Index | 22.2 | 11.3 |
| Spring Prompt overall | 27 | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 335 | 164 |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Released | 21 Jul 2026 (newer) | 16 Mar 2026 |
| Weights | Closed | Open |
| Developer based in | the US | France |
Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.
Which is better for what
Each model's rank among models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.
| Use case | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live | 16 of 20 | not measured |
| Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is | 17 of 19 | not measured |
| User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled | 6 of 8 | not measured |
| Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending | 15 of 19 | not measured |
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | 73 of 164 | 132 of 164 |
| Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects | 46 of 51 | not measured |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 91 of 198 | 131 of 198 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 49 of 188 | 116 of 188 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | 62 of 152 | not measured |
| Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) | 2 of 22 | 9 of 22 |
From our research
Every shared result
Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.
| Measure | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| BulletBench measured by Spring Prompt · 3 results | ||
| Cost per game · Bullet 60sUS dollars, lower is better | $0.0058 | $0.0039no reasoning |
| Ladder Elo · Bullet 60sladder Elo, higher is better | 780 | 367no reasoning |
| Ladder Elo · Lightning 10+1ladder Elo, higher is better | 892 | 571no reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better | 22.2 | 11.3 |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better | 83.8% | 76.9% |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better | 18.8% | 9.9% |
Show all 21 results (15 more)
| Measure | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Mistral Small 4 |
|---|---|---|
| BulletBench measured by Spring Prompt · 7 results | ||
| Cost per game · Lightning 10+1US dollars, lower is better | $0.0070 | $0.0041no reasoning |
| Games lost on time · Bullet 60s% of games, lower is better | 0.0% | 25.0%no reasoning |
| Games lost on time · Lightning 10+1% of games, lower is better | 0.0% | 0.0%no reasoning |
| Invalid moves · Bullet 60s% of moves, lower is better | 0.0% | 0.6%no reasoning |
| Invalid moves · Lightning 10+1% of moves, lower is better | 0.0% | 1.0%no reasoning |
| Median move time · Bullet 60smilliseconds, lower is better | 0.9 s | 0.6 sno reasoning |
| Median move time · Lightning 10+1milliseconds, lower is better | 0.9 s | 0.6 sno reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 8 results | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better | 53.6% | 21.0% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better | 1.0% | 0.0% |
| τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better | 17.5% | 4.9% |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better | 49.3 | 26.6 |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better | 76.0% | 49.7% |
| Output speedtokens per second, higher is better | 335 | 164 |
| SciCode% of problems, higher is better | 41.3% | 38.8% |
| Time to first answer tokenseconds, lower is better | 7.29 | 0.47no reasoning |
Quick answers
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite better than Mistral Small 4?
Pick Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.2 against 11.3). Pick Mistral Small 4 if cost matters more: it costs 33% less per game of bullet chess on BulletBench. Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is also faster.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or Mistral Small 4?
Mistral Small 4 is cheaper to run: $0.004 against $0.006 per game of bullet chess on BulletBench (33% less).
Which is faster, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or Mistral Small 4?
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite writes about 335 tokens a second on its usual API, against 164 for Mistral Small 4 (Artificial Analysis).
Run Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and Mistral Small 4 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.